From Where You Are
by Shizuku Tsukishima749
Summary: -PC Movieverse AU.- It was inevitable, impossible to stop. Screaming as she fell, the freezing water dragged her under, and the last thing she saw was her brother's blue eyes. Warning: Character Death.
1. From Where You Are

_A/N: _This is my first story dealing with character death I've _ever _written, so please bear with me if it's horrid! XD I did my best! (This is an AU of Prince Caspian, by the way!)

**_A/N: _**_This is a fanfic based on a You Tube vid by preciousxrayne, which is **beautiful**! I **highly** recommend watching it (but perhaps not, if you want to be surprised for the ending and what comes next)!_

_Disclaimer: _I do not own Chronicles of Narnia, though I _dearly _wish I did! C.S. Lewis, Walden Media, and (now) Fox does!

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**From Where You**** Are**

Lucy had gone on ahead through the Narnian woods she loved and had missed so much, and Peter could no longer hear her. He had begun running a while back, just in case she needed his help and he was too far behind to know, but he still heard nothing.

She had been right to come this way, of course; she had been right the entire time. He had been too stubborn, too proud to come down off the pedestal on which he'd put himself and admit that he was wrong, to believe her when she said she'd seen Aslan. He should have believed her; she had always been correct about the Lion growing up as a Queen of Narnia, so who was he to say she hadn't been this time around, too?

He hated the person he'd become in these last six months. Ever since leaving the comfort of the Professor's house behind, he had been getting angrier and angrier, finally letting it out in the numerous fights in which he had recently found himself. Edmund had been there, too, this morning, helping out on his side with a couple of the bigger, meaner boys trying to hold him down.

Tilting his head back as he ran and closing his eyes for a few seconds, he relished in the feeling of the pure, Narnian sunlight bathing his face.

Edmund…

He missed his brother now; really, he had been missing him for a while. The boy had only volunteered to go with Trumpkin and Susan to scout out the surrounding area once more for good measure, to be sure. It wasn't that he was gone forever or left behind in England, it…it was just that Peter hadn't realized what was there the whole time. By acting as he had in Finchley, he'd pushed his brother away from him…

Edmund, never ceasing in fidelity when it came to his family, no matter if they deserved it or not, had been right beside him in each combat despite his not being directly involved. The majority of the time, Peter had been too focused on his own pain to even _thank _him for his help or treat his injuries after Edmund had tended to his.

He blinked back the tears and sudden wave of nausea as he thought of just how selfish he had been these past half-dozen months.

He, Lucy, Susan, and Edmund had returned through the wardrobe a year ago at present. They hadn't all adjusted well.

Susan had reverted back to her old self: always alone, her face perpetually buried in a book. No stories about fairy tales or adventure, though that hadn't changed from before either. She would be her real self, Queen Susan the Gentle, around her siblings, fellow Kings and Queen as they were; yet, around adults, she would act like the perfectly mature woman they expected her to be, while her siblings thought her painfully distant and foreign. It was just too painful for her.

He had been causing grief for their Mother as of late with all of his skirmishes, and his Father had sounded so very disappointed in some of the rare letters they received from him…

Peter struggled to force down the bile that rose in his throat at these mere thoughts. How _had _he slipped so far behind in what he knew was right, in everything he'd learned as a Golden Monarch of Narnia? How had the others let it happen?—

He froze in his tracks immediately, eyes wide and breath gone, not even registering that he had stopped at all.

Had he really just accused his siblings of everything _he_ had done wrong? Had he really—really blamed _them_ for his mistakes…?

Looking up at the sky once more, he closed his eyes tightly as twin, shining tears leaked from them and trailed down his cheeks. High King Peter would never have done such a thing, would have put them first above everything and all else, would never have let things get as bad as they were now.

He really had messed up, hadn't he?

Hearing twigs snap straight in front of him, he shook himself from his self-pity for the time being and drew his sword in a practiced, fluid motion, ready to face any assailants that may have sneaked up on him in his moment of weakness.

Instead, he checked himself as he saw Lucy calmly making her way back to him, face solemn as she came to a halt in front of him and her blue eyes bore into his.

He was relaxed now, for the most part; his shoulders were slumped, and he was breathing more easily, but his hand muscles seemed unwilling to relinquish his sword to its proper place. The feel of it in his hands was so familiar, so loved and hated, something he had longed to feel again for such a hideously long time... How could he bear to part with it once more, even if it would only be in its scabbard at his hip?

He felt so silly. If it hadn't been so important to him, he was sure both he and Lucy would have been laughing out loud before now.

His little sister, though, only kept her somber countenance and read him further than she already had; she knew what he'd been contemplating during his run, during his self-loathing. She had examined him in the air and was only getting a better picture the closer she got to him.

He wasn't shy of her touch when she stretched careful, tentative fingers toward his face, but he flinched sharply when she wiped away the two tears from earlier with her gentle thumbs. Pulling her hands away slowly, she wiped the wet remnants on the front of her dress and proceeded to take his hand tenderly.

Looking down gradually, Peter squeezed her hand as she did his, glancing up and giving her a small smile. She returned it, though it was smaller even than his, and he became aware of just how much the past year had killed the youngest of the family.

They all considered this Lucy's place, after Aslan's and His Father's, of course; Narnia, that is. She had discovered it, believed in it, loved it, brought them into it, shared her love with everyone there and let it spread for all five thousand and near-fifty days of their reign: it was her place, indisputably. Therefore, it had killed her to leave it; even more, it had killed her to have been the one to lead them _all _out of it.

Thinking back, he remembered the nights when she had cried herself to sleep after they'd fallen out of the wardrobe that fateful day. He and the others had comforted her in the beginning, but as the tears went on to be an every night given, he terrified himself now by realizing _that_ had been the careful rhythm to which he'd fallen asleep every night these past, numerous months.

The air painfully sucked out of him as he tried to take in more and couldn't, as his eyes were wide for the third time that morning alone, he couldn't function. He had unknowingly been letting his sister _suffer _for Aslan knew how long, using her tears as _lullabies_?! Now, he knew he was going to be sick.

Dropping his sword to the forest floor and bending away from his sister quickly, he threw himself into a pile of bushes and disposed of his breakfast from that morning, feeling Lucy's small, loving hands rub his back in consolation. He was glad she didn't decipher his sobs through his wretches, but for all he knew, maybe she did and just refused to outwardly acknowledge them.

When said hands disappeared, he wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and drank from the water skin Lucy handed him, smartly having had enough sense to hook one to her dagger belt before leaving the Treasure Room back at Cair Paravel.

Once the wicked taste of bile mingled with an apple and piece of toast had mostly left his mouth, he shakily handed the liquid carrier back to the girl. Taking it, she reattached it to her belt and did her best to smile for him. Unfortunately, that smile had the backward effect.

Lunging forward suddenly, Lucy seemed almost completely invisible as Peter gripped his sister exceptionally tightly, releasing his tears a second time and with more force now that he had her in his arms.

She was not crying now, but she had been every night before this one; she was safe now, but she hadn't been when he had been fully prepared to unwittingly run her through with his sword several minutes ago; she wasn't worried about herself now, but she should have been, as she was the most likely of them all to have lasting scars from the painfully beautiful memories of their lives as Kings and Queens.

Having her gathered against his chest, he agonizingly squeezed his eyes shut and sobbed hard and loudly, gasping for breath between each one. His face was very red and incomprehensibly vulnerable, not something at all befitting when any Old Narnian thought of the eldest of the Ancient Sovereigns.

Lucy held him in turn, grasping him around the middle as strongly as she could with her own limbs going numb from his desperate clenching. Finally thinking she would be unable to hold in her own tears any longer, the burning in her eyes became too much and compelled her to blink, sending the droplets cascading down her face.

Soon after came the sobs, and the two siblings were both a crying heap by the time they even somehow heard Edmund and Susan's voices a quarter of a mile off over their noises of misery. They didn't stop just yet, couldn't stop, and it was then that Peter mostly succeeded to speak through his tears.

"I'm so sorry… Oh, Aslan, Lu…I'm sorry… I didn't know… I just…" His voice broke even further as he choked on the salty beads, and he buried his face further into the back of her shoulder as he held her increasingly tighter. "You were crying, and I…_Lion's Mane, _Lucy…I just—"

His tears defined and dissolved him now; he was the solute, they were the grouping solvents. His sister was the only thing that kept him even partially attached to any world, much less their own, their former kingdom.

Lucy spoke to him in this break, in a bit of her old tongue out of habit. Her voice was a quiet whisper as her own tears forced her into near silence.

"Peter…you were emotionally worn by each day's end; you would have broken had you been there the unending nights I cried. Leaving Narnia—" Her voice caught here, and they both knew why. "A fault, which is mine alone, I have never ceased regretting."

Peter suddenly took her shoulders firmly and pushed her away from him, barely arms' length, wishing he hadn't as he at last saw her face.

Immensely red and tear-stained, liquid diamonds pooled in his sister's cerulean eyes and drifted down her cheeks, and he could feel his very heart break each time he felt her shudder with a stifled sob.

He lovingly took a tendril of her long, red-brown hair from her sticky face and stowed it behind her ear, beaming through everything when she leaned into his touch with closed eyes as he brought gentle fingers to her cheek to cast away her tears. A few new ones slipped past her eyelids to gather in the minuscule crevice between her wet visage and his index finger.

He threw his other arm around her shoulders and brought her to him once again, his hand going from her face to be placed behind her head and entangled in her hair. Sitting sideways between his parted knees as her head rested against his strong chest, she inched forward on her knees to listen to his heart, smiling and laughing tearfully as she felt her brother bend forward to whisper, 'I love you', in the opposite ear.

She could remember many a time when the roles had been reversed, when she had held him like this as he cried away his misery.

He would be inconsolable, even for Edmund, until she took him in her arms like he had her now, until she whispered gentle tidings and messages of hope and love, until he finally let himself show feebleness in front of the three of them.

Most times, he would cry himself so close to sleep that he would mumble the trouble, tell them what the matter was, and most times, they would see why he had been so irritable or downcast. On the rare occasion when it would be something of which they couldn't make head or tail, they would allow their brother to sleep until the morrow, spending the night with him in his chamber.

The bed had been big enough for all of them, being the High King's, so they would crowd in it together more often than not, Edmund and Lucy never ceasing to be ensnared in the protective, loving embraces of Peter and Susan before sunrise. Even in unconsciousness, Peter always wanted what was best for his siblings, and so, held them closely.

When the next morning came, Peter would awaken, see his younger siblings strewn about his bed, and smile with all the love he possessed. Their very presence would renew his heart, his spirit, and instantly, all would be set right with him. All shadows of doubt or torment would leave his mind after seeing them so vulnerable, knowing they had protected him in his moment of drawback just as he had reflexively protected them, and he would wake them gently.

Upon seeing him with the unconditional love for them gleaming in his eyes, they knew immediately that he would be fine. They had fixed him, and if that repair might only last for the time being, so be it. They would do it again whenever needed, for they would be there as long as Aslan permitted them.

They loved their High King, their brother, after all. They would always love him, no matter what he did or failed to do. They were a family, royal family besides, and they would remain as such until the end of their days.

Snapping back from her reverie, Lucy became aware of her other brother and sister's voices becoming louder and louder; at best, they were only a few yards away. Gradually pulling back from her big brother's grasp, he looked at her strangely as he relinquished his hold. His hands settling limply in his lap, she noticed he must have long ago stopped crying, though his face was still soaked and red.

Reaching up to feel her face, it was very damp, hot, and sticky, and she concentrated on the feel of her eyes. There were no longer tears forming in them, no more lighted crystals streaming, which meant they must have stopped without her notice while she had been 'back there'.

Her attention was switched to Peter as he tenderly drew her hand away from her cheek, intertwining their fingers as he wiped his previously soggy face with the opposite sleeve of his tunic. Taking the sleeve of the arm attached to the hand holding hers, he let go for just a moment to wash her face in the same way, their careful, yet jubilant laughs echoing throughout the forest.

Her countenance abruptly as serious as when she'd first walked back to him, she pierced him with those eyes yet another time and gave life-required breath to her thoughts. Her voice was airy and mature, making her sound every bit the Valiant Queen she had been and continued to be. She was twenty-four, after all, and had not gotten to speak as she was since being back in England, if solely in private.

"There is no easy way to forgive ourselves for past mistakes, Brother. Yet, there is time, as well as love, both of which can aid in healing. This is known full-well, especially by our High King." Smiling at him gently, she reached forward and barely squeezed his hand, her touch light and hand unimaginably soft.

He returned the smile and cupped her chin in his calloused, yet porcelain hand, and bent forward just enough to kiss her on the forehead for numerous seconds. Allowing her eyelids to plunge her into complete darkness in her euphoria, Lucy couldn't help but let a tiny, gorgeous smile brighten her outwardly from the inside. Sighing in absolute contentment, she was forced to keep back a sob and new brigade of tears. How she had missed this, the indefinable beauty of the two of them together.

They were startled by a young male's affectionately sarcastic voice and a gentle, blissfully feminine sigh to their right.

"So, is this what you do when you're alone and we're risking our lives?" Peter drew away slowly, knowing perfectly well they weren't in the least bit of danger as they both turned to face their fellow King and Queen. Susan, Edmund, and the Dwarf, Trumpkin, had rejoined them, returned safely.

Peter looked to Lucy with a grin as he offered her a hand, and she returned the beam and took it, reveling in the warmth that emanated from the palm and not minding when the wet part of his sleeve touched her wrist.

He stood and helped her up at the same time, her free hand plucking the forgotten Rhindon from the ground as he did so. Handing it to him by the lower hilt, he gripped the higher part not occupied by her fingers and confidently slid it into the scabbard at his side. They smiled at each other meaningfully before they broke apart, eyes shining.

Lucy trudged up the small incline to meet them with Peter right behind her, the master surgeon within her looking them over with a thoroughly contemplative expression on her face. There was no sign of paleness or quickly beating hearts to them, no sign of struggle or injury, their clothing and weapons appearing as unruffled, unsoiled, and unused as one could keep them while poking around a forest. Yet, she couldn't help but want to make sure.

"Are you all right?"

Chuckling good-naturedly as he smiled, Edmund looked to the forest floor a minute prior to lifting his head. Glancing at Peter for a split, desperately needed second, he smiled lovingly in relief as he saw that his dearly loved brother had come back to him at last.

His grin widening as he again turned his attention to Lucy, he laid a soothing hand on his little sister's shoulder, eyes, face, and manner tenderer than any of the siblings had seen in a long time. The Narnian air was working on him already, bringing back the Just King they knew and loved.

"Yes, Lu, we're perfectly all right. But, you…" Suddenly, Lucy's heart raced as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously and gently traced an invisible line down her cheek. Withdrawing his hand, he grinned sympathetically as she dipped her head; he knew she recognized that look in his eyes, the one that said he wasn't finished.

Taking her hand gently in his own and stepping beside her so as to carefully lock their arms together, he led her away from the others, her tense shoulders becoming less and less so with each step. Her brother would never do anything to harm her, never allow her to be harmed or made uncomfortable if he could at all help it. She loved him implicitly.

The echoes of Edmund's quiet words reached Peter, Susan, and Trumpkin as they watched, and the eldest of the child-rulers looked to the two left with him.

"Ed'll take care of her. Come on. We'd better start walking or I'll lose Lu again." Walking forward as he began talking, he winced as soon as he concluded his sentence and waited for the inevitable scolding from Susan. When it didn't come, he became worried and looked over his shoulder to where he had last seen her. What he saw amazed him.

Susan, their practical, gentle sister, who had been kindly reminding them of what was accepted as appropriate in English society ever since they'd been forced back, was laughing: _laughing _at the fact that he'd potentially let something happen to their youngest sibling! Even as his walking recommenced, he drifted back to be beside her and couldn't keep his mouth from dropping, unchecked.

"What's funny about that, Su?!" He couldn't keep even slight laughter from his voice; his eldest sister's recently seldom heard laughter was nothing short of contagious and joy-inspiring. Striving to talk through her bouts of chuckles, she explained.

"Of _course_…I'm not laughing…at _that_, Peter! But, really…not even _Edmund _can keep…track of Lucy for more than…ten minutes at a time!" Recovering finally, she smiled at him, face flushed beautifully from her giggle fit. "You remember how she was at this age—goodness, even at twenty-three! So full of energy and life…" Her voice quieted in adoring tenderness as she paused to glance in the direction in which the youngest members of their family had gone.

Noticing his sister's expression had become suddenly thoughtful, sadly fearful, Peter's blue eyes narrowed protectively as he halted, the girl and Red Dwarf confusedly following suit. Laying a strong hand on her shoulder, she breathed in quickly and grimaced with closed eyes, as if he had touched a wound.

Seeing his panicked face when she opened her eyes a second later, Susan knew he would have her dress off her shoulder in a second and alarm everyone in the vicinity with his demands to know what happened if she didn't clarify quickly. Grasping his hand with both of hers, she kissed it and held it tightly, blue orbs gazing into his as she spoke in a tender voice.

"I promise you, Peter, I'm all right; Edmund's okay; Trumpkin, too. It was just…bad timing. I was…" Removing her eyes and one of her hands from his, she kept them toward the forest floor as she forced him to resume his walking. Absentmindedly, nervously, she took her other hand from his and let it fall to her side, his eyes flickering from their previously joined hands to her face. "It scares me, you know, how vibrant Lucy is. It makes me worry about…" She seemed to falter, and his eyes hardened further, cheeks a deeper red than they had been when she admitted to being frightened. "Peter...what if..." She bit her lip. "What if something happens? What if she…"

Peter held up a hand instantly, and Susan looked up at him. His eyes were scrunched closed, face pinched in unimaginable pain as he thought of what the rest of her sentence would have been. He didn't open his eyes, for Susan knew the rush of tears he was holding in lay just beyond the lids.

"_Stop_…_please_…" His voice quivered, and it destroyed Susan to know that she had been the one to cause such pain. Tears entered her own eyes, and she looked down after closing them, feeling guilty and conflicted all the time.

She knew what he was thinking, of course. Being the eldest, they had always had quite a special bond, not unlike the equally as strong, yet emotionally different ones they had with each of their younger siblings.

_We've spoken of this already, so many times… Don't you remember how I was whenever she was hurt in battle? I can't bear the memories again; I can't bear for it to __happen__ again. Just…Su…I beseech you, Sister, say no more..._

Yes, she remembered. Sighing almost inaudibly, she lifted her face to the sky as the memories vividly flourished to life within her.

He wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, wouldn't speak unless necessary. He would sit by her bedside whenever possible, tightly holding her hand and staring at her with tears swimming in his eyes, silently begging her to be all right, for Aslan to please preserve her.

She couldn't explain why, but she unexpectedly felt the sickening need to pray for her sister. Bowing her head just the slightest bit, not wishing to call attention to herself at the present time, she prayed.

_Even if only for his sake, for the sake of my beloved brother, the High King Peter, preserve her... _

It was short, but it would serve its purpose: the purpose of protecting their sister after all of these years.

Noticing the sudden silence of the forest for perhaps the first time, she listened. Twigs and leaves crunched underneath their feet as she, Peter, and the Red Dwarf walked, the gentle breathing of the Narnian and that labored kind of her brother adding to such familiar sounds and making her emit a minuscule smile.

Slowly raising her head, she locked her eyes on the small figures of Edmund and Lucy quite a ways ahead of them, and her smile grew. They were still holding hands, though it was in a much less serious manner now, and she heard an abrupt, loud laugh from Lucy as she threw her head back with a wide, buoyant, open-mouthed grin.

She felt a hand grab hers from her left, and she peered at Peter apprehensively. There were no more tears in his eyes; they had dried up at his pressing, not desiring to dwell on such dark thoughts, especially after just coming home. Her wary expression softened into another, warm upturn of the lips.

Abruptly, they stopped, Peter motioning for Susan to peer before them and see the younger two had also halted far ahead. They glanced at each other questioningly and sprinted toward them, keeping their eyes peeled for danger and their hands readily on their weapons.

Sojourning beside them, Peter and Susan next to Lucy while Trumpkin popped up alongside Edmund a second later, they understood: they had, again, reached the gorge.

They all looked to Lucy now, waiting patiently as she briefly scanned the opposite side of the carved ravine. Glowing excitedly, she looked down at her feet as she walked, careful not to trip over any rocks or roots or twigs that might result in injury. Glancing up as she got to the edge, her concentrated eyes this time more seriously set on the other section, she shuffled her feet accordingly.

Shifting to her right, she paused, furrowing her brow and narrowing her trained eyes to identify complete sureness. Half-whirling to look at them, lengthy, red-brown tresses dancing around her face, eyes glimmering in perfect joy, she provided them with the most dazzlingly beautiful beam her siblings had ever seen.

Then:

A horrible groaning from the earth beneath her,

A scream,

And Lucy fell.


	2. Awakening

_Disclaimer_: I do not own Chronicles of Narnia or anything affiliated. C.S. Lewis (genius!), Walden Media, and Fox Productions do!

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Somehow, he suddenly became aware of the fact that his eyes were wet, that something hot was running down his cheeks, and that his mouth was dry as it moved and emitted sound, though what all of this meant, he didn't know. In any case, these were only the subconscious observations of one mostly still asleep, and not everything was clear.

A little more awake after a few seconds, he comprehended that he was tossing and turning wildly, his clothes felt damp and were fitting him strangely, and someone was shaking and calling out to him. The voice sounded broken… Why…?

Finally, all at once, his eyes shot open and body lurched upward, breath stopping for a split second before beginning again as a ragged inhalation. His heart pounded without rest, and as he crashed back onto the ground, he realized he was perspiring profusely. _That's _why his tunic and pants were sticking to him!

Reaching up to wipe his clammy face with an oddly shaking hand, he grasped that the warm watercourses on his visage, though indistinguishable from the sweat, were _tears_. But…why would he be crying?

Suddenly, his screams from earlier came back to him, and although their actual words remained a mystery to him, the after-effects seared his throat. He coughed, unfortunately only making the pain worse, but he noticed something beyond this: familiar voices trilled the air, their tragic tones making him quite nervous, indeed.

Had he just recovered from another fever? Had he stressed himself beyond his capacity again? Was he home, in his bedchamber at Cair Paravel?

No…they had left Narnia…a year ago, only making it back today…through the train station…

Wait a minute: _they_… Susan, Lucy, Ed! Were they all right?!

Scrambling to push himself off the ground and into a sitting position, his quick breathing hitched almost instantly for what could easily have been eternity.

Susan and Edmund were sitting side-by-side on their knees before him, their faces and specific characteristics unintelligible to his unadjusted eyes. Yet, he could hear them just fine, and what he heard did not at all settle his uneasy heart or stomach.

They were sobbing miserably, despairingly, their heartbeats and lungfuls of air intermittent. He stared at them for numerous instants, unsure what to say and waiting impatiently for his eyes to become used to the night's little moonlight.

What would make them cry like this? Edmund didn't often cry, hadn't so much in the last year, at least…but then, he hadn't exactly been present for much of that time… Susan had been so lonely since being back that she'd cried more often than she had in Narnia, though the whimpers he'd heard through doors and walls were nothing compared to these.

These were heartbreaking, like something irreparable had happened, and they were only now feeling the full impact. His own eyes burned with the thought of something scaring, or scarring, them so much. After all, there was nothing of which to be afraid, certainly not with him there…right?

He wasn't invincible; he knew that. He _had _known it since the Battle of Beruna, and every battle onward had worked to keep that point brightly illuminated in his mind. He had always been the protector of this family, and even with twelve months' absence and a smaller, weaker body, he liked to think that he could still effectively guard those he loved.

Unable to take it any longer, he narrowed his eyes and allowed a soft question to slip past his lips, not even registering the stinging protests of his throat as he did so.

"Am I missing something?" The two weren't startled by his interjection, but rather, jumped with the sobs wracking their forms until Edmund compelled his weeps to subside. Gently taking Susan's hand as it blindly groped to rest on his knee, he lifted his face to have his brown eyes pierce Peter's blue ones, and the elder boy was struck dumb by the heartache and absolute pain to be found there.

Honestly, this was something huge, something bigger than himself and all the rest; bigger than the Ancient Four, Trumpkin, Caspian, and maybe even all of Narnia. But…if this was something so important, why weren't Trumpkin and Lu up, too?

He didn't expect the Dwarf to cry, of course, but as he looked around, he was able to spot the little man at the forested edge of the clearing, pacing back and forth with the stealthy silence of a Narnian soldier. He was acting as a sentry for them.

He exhaled quietly in relief. One down, one to go.

Carefully scanning every inch of the area surrounding him in his efforts to find Lucy, fear gurgled within him as his detailed searching came up with nothing. After the fourth run-through, even glancing over at Trumpkin to make sure she wasn't with him and simply hidden by the shadows, he set his eyes on his brother and sister.

Edmund was still poised to answer, though he had waited to see if the fourteen-year-old would figure it out to save him from responding. The raw panic he saw in his brother's eyes and overall exterior, however, expressed otherwise, and he sighed, feeling disgusting and ill as he hung his head.

Blinking back the tears that blighted his vision, he raised his head once more and spoke, ignoring his cracking voice and the small number of tears that escaped against his will.

"Lucy is with us, Brother, but not in our way." Seeing the excruciating confusion on the boy- High King's face, the would-be twenty-six-year-old could say nothing. He merely pointed downward to something between them, and his tremulous hand said it all: _You shall abhor what you see beyond all you've seen_._ My King, I do not exaggerate. I would never, not on a thing as this._

The franticness from earlier now gave way to pure hysteria, an almost earthly feeling, and Peter swallowed the lump in his throat, though he didn't know what to do to dispose of the gradually growing one in his stomach.

Very cautiously, he lowered his head in seemingly slow motion to follow Edmund's finger, and it took several, ticking moments for his brain to realize that everything his brother had said was true. Too true, at that.

Blue eyes, red-brown hair, creamy skin, nine-year-old form and all stared up at him. For a second, Peter was so relieved at finding his youngest sister that he almost cried out.

But then, he recalled all that had transpired since his awakening. Why and how would Lu cause all of that?

Abruptly, Susan's frenzied voice broke into the night in a near scream, causing his eyes to widen and neck to snap up to look at her; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Trumpkin and Ed jump as he did.

"Can't you _see it_, Peter?! Can't you tell there's something _wrong_?! Why, she's—"

"_Stop it, Su_!"

Edmund cried out in a tone louder than hers, more controlled than hers, and she broke into disconsolate sobs once more, burying her face into his shoulder as she let out her pain. The younger boy rubbed her back with one hand as the other squeezed her previously possessed hand tightly, though the comforts were different this time, more desperate.

Meanwhile, Peter hadn't taken his sister's outburst very well at all.

Something _wrong _with Lucy? Like what? He didn't see a thing wrong, other than the fact that her skin was a touch or two whiter than normal and her breathing was inaudible to even his trained ears…and her eyes were open…

His eyes widened, and he could swear his heart stopped.

Oh, _dear Aslan_, no! No, no, not his Lucy! Not Lu! Oh, please…please, not Lu…!

Bending over even as stomach-turning comprehension dawned, he discounted the alarming, unnatural stiffness of her body as he laid his ear on her chest with the tentativeness of a feather: nothing…at all… Not willing to give up yet, not for anything or anyone, he hovered above her nose and felt her wrist and neck for a pulse, if only to verify:

Not a throb or breath, even weak.

No bait of hope.

Not one.

Reeling back from the body, for that's what it was, with a screeching, horrified, howling wail that could have woken all of Narnia with its traveling sorrow, he understood and wished to the Lion that he didn't.

Lucy was just as Edmund had said: away from them—

Lucy was gone—

Lucy was dead.

He was inconsolable, unable to be helped: he'd gone plumb crazy, and that was it.

Hammering on the little girl's chest as he remembered from times long past, he pumped on his sister's heart and breathed into her mouth whilst her head was tilted back and nose pinched closed. He repeated the process many times, tears showering down his face and counting incomprehensible as his voice was destroyed beyond measure by his sobs.

"Peter, _enough_!" At some point, Edmund had gotten behind him, and now, his strong hands captured the High King's shoulders and roughly pried him from the youngest Pevensie's body, for that was the only way it could have been done. The Just King had been trying to snap the boy out of it for the last ten minutes, even going so far as to slap him once, but he hadn't appeared to have felt a thing. Susan's aghast scream had stopped him from trying that again, so this had been his last resort.

Being slighter and more fragile than he had been at one time, the younger King staggered back with the amount of effort it took to haul his brother, but he quickly regained his footing and steadied them both. Peter put up a fight for a good while, frantically striving to get back to Lucy to keep trying to bring her back to them, but Edmund didn't let go or give any indication of weakening.

Suddenly, as he gazed upon the still, pasty, unseeing creature that was his sister, he gave. For an instant, the denial had almost been worse than the acceptance: then, the scene broke.

The Valiant Queen of Narnia was before his eyes, an eight-year-old once again; her hair was in waves to match her Eastern Sea domain, and a sparkling, white dress adorned her frame to symbolize her captivating innocence. Kneeling, a brilliant smile lit her face, full of wonder and odd maturity, as her head was donned with an amazingly intricate, silver, leaf-and-flower-decorated crown. He recalled that day now; how he'd smiled and the way his chest had threatened to burst with pride and love—

And then…the setting faded, abandoned him in the bleak, moonlit forest and away from the grins and beckoning light of the other location, the other era. The…_corpse _several paces away had somehow been the jolly girl in the flashback; how, he didn't know, but the acknowledgement had finished crashing through the last of his defenses as the thought crossed his mind, and he collapsed to his knees.

He had no choice now: it was between either resigning to what was already there and known…or failing. Through his haze, he knew the others were still there, still needed him, and he couldn't allow himself to fall short… Not yet…

Edmund fell along with him, releasing his brother's arms and biting his lip as he tried to keep the tears from his eyes. Getting slowly to his feet as Susan followed suit, he walked around his brother, though it was no wonder when the blazing droplets tore down his cheeks and caused sobs to very nearly overtake him as they had before.

The Gentle Queen knelt in front of her elder sibling immediately upon reaching him, but Edmund waited for a few seconds, clapping a firm hand over his mouth and swiping his wet eyes with the back of his free one. After driving back the cries for the sake of what he knew to be coming, he considered himself as composed as ever to be subject to a question-and-answer session centered around his little sister's death.

Peter kept his head down, blond hair hiding his face from the rest of them, though some of it was still sweat-soaked and stuck to his forehead and the back of his neck. As he reached up and used his thumb and forefinger to press away some of the tears leaking from his eyes, he unconsciously lifted his face for a split second, and Edmund could only frown and quail further as he saw his assumption take truthful shape.

Though he was trying to hide it, the High King over all Kings in Narnia was a wreck. His visage was cherry-red and drenched with the harsh saltiness that came with seas of tears, suppressed suppurates jostled his form, and the occasional cry that escaped only brought more silent ones with it, making the picture all the more gut wrenching.

Someway recovering his voice through the quivering, disconnected mess it had become, Peter literally choked out his words; they were indecipherable to those not experiencing the same pain.

"How long—? How long has she been like this?"

Edmund flinched, as did Su; this was the second-hardest part. His voice was flowing and quiet as he answered, head titled downward as his eyes, half-closed, fixed on the shaking hands in his lap and multitasked in calming them.

"I don't know, Pete. Maybe…eleven, twelve hours…? It…it was early afternoon…" He couldn't say anymore. Their brother really wanted them to estimate the time since their sister's death…? Edmund swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

A strangled sob reached the Just King's ears, and he knew Peter was going to break down again, ask the thing that would kill them the most, or a mixture of both. He prayed to the Lion it would only be the first option for now…

"What happened?!" The question had come out more like a scream than he'd meant, but fourteen-year-old was nearly beside himself for a second time. Tears poured down his cheeks, and when he raised his face to them fully, Susan and Edmund both knew that expression would haunt them for countless nights to come.

Now, here was the part they'd been dreading, the part that would scar them and make him wish he'd never asked. Nonetheless, he was their High King; they were King and Queen under him; and they had no way of denying him information as much his as it was theirs, if not more.

Susan answered him first in this instance, giving her little brother time as she squeezed his shoulder; he nodded in thanks.

"She fell, Peter... We all—we all saw her..." Her voice wavered a little, and she gulped as she saw Peter pale, his eyes widening and filling with tears as recollection hit: he _remembered_. She continued before it got any worse. "The rocks under her feet were weak, unable to support even her small weight…and we were to the edge almost immediately. There _was _a way down, " Her vocal cords constricted, volume scarcely more than a whisper, and her elder brother blanched ever further, already knowing what she was going to say; there was only one thing that would make her sound so shameful. "She was telling the truth about Aslan, Peter…"

The two eldest Pevensies had been the worst offenders yesterday morning, when Lucy first reported seeing Aslan. Peter had already reconciled with their sister, just minutes before disaster had struck, but Su… She'd never gotten to apologize for her perfidious behavior and admit her true reasons for denying Him...

Sobs forced their way from Susan's throat, tears falling down her cheeks as she leaned heavily into Edmund, whom straightened his hunched form to accommodate her weight and wrapped his arm comfortingly around her shoulders. As he looked up at his brother, his face was forcibly dry, although no less placid, and he reluctantly volunteered to tell the rest of the already horrendous tale.

"If Lu had taken three or four steps to the left, Pete…she would have fallen on the pathway leading down the gorge's side. But…she didn't, and…she fell into the river... She went under, and you jumped after her faster than I could move to stop you. She didn't come up for the longest time…and as I raced down the gorge to help, I watched when you…couldn't reach her. You looked so _desperate_, as we all were, and I didn't even notice Susan and Trumpkin climbing down after me. I was so focused on you two… I saw her come up a number of times just to be swept under again; the current was too fast and too strong for her to fight, and it would shift whenever you almost had her… You finally grabbed her when I made it to the bottom and dove in to help you, battling the flow as we both held on to her. I didn't see how pale she was until we lifted her into Susan's arms, and Lucy's skin… She was just as pale as I was after—"

He shivered, throat closing and eyes darkening momentarily, and his siblings knew all too well what he meant. He pushed past his far-away haunting.

"You brought her over to some rocks where the river was placated, and Su tried to get her breathing, just like you did—" His voice cracked; he was heading into emotionally dangerous territory. "It didn't work, so we tried her cordial—several times, but—but nothing worked—"

Despite his biggest efforts, he couldn't keep the cries and liquidized crystals at bay for another minute; the Knight of the Noble Order of the Table's efforts to be strong had gone on long enough.

Susan, though not entirely finished with her own misery assault, took up the final stretch.

"You couldn't stop crying, Peter… Neither could we, but…you wouldn't let her go. You carried her back up here and cried yourself to sleep with the rest of us, hugging her to you… Then, your nightmare…you were screaming her name… We were forced to wake you; we couldn't let you stay there…living it over and over… It was bad enough the first time…" As she kept her gaze from Peter's, it landed on Lucy's body, and she fell apart again.

Peter, however, had been stock-still for the entire recounting. He _remembered _now! All at once, an onrush of physical and mental pain conquered his being, and he closed his eyes and moaned.

Oh, _by the Lion_, did he remember! He had embraced his sister frantically, feverishly pleading for her to wake up, even after she'd been pronounced dead; Edmund had had to grip his wrist to prevent him from throwing the cordial into the very River Rush that had taken Lucy's life; he had yelled at and nearly physically attacked Trumpkin when the stunned Dwarf had come forward to touch the girl's cold, limp hand; he'd cried into her chest before falling asleep, praying and crying so hard it was a wonder the others had gotten any rest at all.

Now, he regretted behaving as badly as he had. They didn't blame him, none of them, never mind that he didn't deserve their mercy. He hurt further. How could they pardon him so easily?

He recalled Edmund's eyes as he'd referenced the White Witch, and he barely held back a shiver of his own. It had been a dark time for all of them, but it was also painfully true that Edmund had specific reasons for being the most scarred and affected by it, even sixteen years later.

Though his offense had admittedly been direr, this must have been how Edmund had felt toward everyone back then. In fact, he knew it was, for Peter himself had been the Just King's chief comforter whenever he had been particularly sensitive about his treachery and broken down.

"Your Majesties…" Trumpkin's quiet voice startled the three Sovereigns immensely and caused them to jump. They'd been so involved in their ubiquitous emotions that they hadn't even heard him approach. As he'd spoken, the Red Dwarf had crept up behind the Gentle Queen and tentatively placed a respectfully consoling hand on her shoulder.

They studied the crusty Narnian closely before answering. His face was wet and just a few pigments behind matching his hair, and his eyes seemed strangely friendlier in the moonlight. Perhaps it was just them; they would have been willing to deem anything inviting at that point.

He blushed just the slightest bit when Susan removed his minuscule hand from her shoulder and gathered it in her own, kissing its backside in gratitude for the needed reassurance. He looked at each of them in turn as he restarted, face and voice taking on stronger attributes as he went.

"Your Majesties, I realize this is a difficult time, and…I'm sorry to have to interrupt. All the same, I don't believe Lucy or her Lion wanted her sacrifice to be in vain. She showed us the way down the gorge, something we wouldn't have known was there without her, and I think they would want us to continue on as soon as possible," Indeed, he looked quite powerful, and the children did not know if they could ever look at him the same way again. "Our mission is to find Prince Caspian, and the way to do that is to get to the Shuddering Woods as quickly as possible. We have to cross this gorge and cover as much ground as we can before our army is too far ahead."

After staring in open-mouthed awe for numerous seconds and rendering the poor Dwarf extremely embarrassed, the Three's eyes softened, and they gave him the biggest smiles they could manage; said attempts were valiant, but hardly anything to credit.

Turning their attention to a golden shaft of light peeking between two, far-off, mountain-dwelling Trees, it blinded and forced them to look to the only refuge available: Lucy. She seemed to glow angelically as the light beam expanded to outline the landscape on the horizon, dying the sky pink, purple, red, yellow, and orange. The colors danced across her form, which didn't look so horrifyingly dreadful in the morning aurora, and they understood**. **How they had missed that ever-revealing sunrise…

They had to find Caspian…with or without their sister.


End file.
